Monday, April 10, 2017

Member in the News: Craig Gundersen

Craig Gundersen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

What Americans get wrong about food stamps, according to an expert who’s spent 20 years researching them

By: The Washington Post - April 4, 2017
In fact, many economists believe that SNAP is a singularly effective program. One of them is Craig Gundersen, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has spent the last 20 years researching it. Gundersen's views are not universal: The safety net is complex, after all. But his work -- which has been funded by the Department of the Agriculture, as well as numerous charitable foundations and anti-poverty groups -- includes nearly 200 published papers and a book on the economics of the program, titled "SNAP Matters." Gundersen has also traveled the country, explaining SNAP to state legislatures, Congressional committees, agricultural groups, anti-hunger advocates, and fellow academics.

Recently, the Post met up with Gundersen to ask him to debunk some of the most common questions we get about SNAP. This is a lightly edited transcript of that conversation.